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Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [c3r p37]

In eos qui supra vires quicquam
audent.

Those who venture on what is beyond their powers

XX.

Figure sleeping and being attacked by pygmies
[Click on image to enlarge]

Dum dormit, dulci recreat dum corpora somno
Link to an image of this page  Link to an image of this page  [c3v p38]Sub picea, & clavam caeteraque arma tenet.
Alcidem Pygmaea manus[1] prosternere letho
Posse putat, vires non bene docta suas.
Excitus ipse, velut pulices, sic proterit hostem,
Et saevi implicitum pelle leonis[2] agit.

While Alceus’ descendant was sleeping, while he was refreshing his body with gentle slumber, beneath a spruce tree, keeping hold of his club and other weapons, a band of pygmies thought they could lay him low in death, not really grasping the limit of their powers. But he, waking up, crushed the foe like fleas, and carried them off, wrapped up in the fierce lion’s skin.

COMMENTARIA.

Alcides, id est, Hercules, sic dictus ab Al-
ceo avo suo paterno seposita clava caeterisque
armis suis, sub picea vel pinu arbore decu-
buit dormiens: quem ut videre Pygmaei (ho-
munciones sunt parvuli in India unius tan-
tům cubiti staturae, qui cum avibus certant,
de quibus Plinius lib. 7. cap. 2.) congregata ma-
gna turba interficere illum moliuntur, ignari
suarum virium. Hercules enim expergefactus
miserč illos in induta pelle Leonis (in Ne-
mea nanque sylva ingentem Leonem iugula-
vit, cuius detracta pelle semper vestiebatur
ut apud Theocritum & Diodorum Siculum) tan-
quam pulices implicitos conterit laniatque.
Quin idem in nostrae tempestatis Pygmaeis
videre est, qui dum temerč, ultraque vires
nimis ardua nituntur, contraque Her-
culem dormientem insurgunt,
miserč tandem uti sorices
pereunt, ignari pro-
verbii, Cům sis
nanus ce-
de.

Notes:

1.  Hercules’ confrontation with the pygmies is described by Philostratus, Eikones 2.22.

2.  ‘the fierce lion’s skin’, the skin of the Nemean lion which Hercules always wore after slaying the beast ([A56a225], [A56a093]).

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